Making Space for South African Fashion: Mkhetwa Baloyi.
Connecting with fellow journalist, Mkhetwa, via the magic of the internet, we were struck by the talent he was sharing, the acessible fashion videos he was posting and his adamance at pushing South African fashion into the global spotlight.
We just had to drop him a line and ask some questions about his work, and the coflict he resists every day.
Why did you set up De Mode Journaliste, what are you interrogating through your own work as a journalist there?
I founded De Mode Journaliste out of a desire to resist the flattening of African fashion narratives and aesthetics into simplified, exportable clichés. The platform began as a personal archive but quickly became a tool of narrative reconstruction, one that allowed me to question the frameworks through which fashion from the Global South is often consumed and misunderstood. As a journalist, I’m not simply interested in reporting style; I’m invested in reading it, unravelling how politics, memory, class, and performance intersect in what we wear. Through De Mode, I explore how style becomes a language of resistance, care, and identity/ especially for Black and queer communities in post-apartheid South Africa.)
What is the current landscape of fashion in South Africa?
South Africa’s fashion landscape is rich, restless, and reconfiguring itself constantly. There’s a vibrant underground of young designers, stylists, image-makers, and storytellers who are using fashion to rewrite cultural memory and assert a future on their own terms. This generation honestly isn’t chasing Western validation, they’re rooted in local traditions, township aesthetics, spiritual codes, and street culture. At the same time, the industry still wrestles with structural inequalities: funding, access to global markets, and legacy institutions often remain out of reach for many creatives. So the tension is between radical self-invention and systemic limitation, but it’s precisely in that friction that new visual languages emerge.
As someone who lives and works somewhere with this very recent history of apartheid and ongoing conflicts and disparities around race-related issues (cultural appropriation, economic inequality, employment etc.) - what are the conflicts you feel at play on your person when you think about clothing and getting dressed?
whether it’s a thrifted oversized blazer, a luxury label, or traditional beadwork—sits inside a deeply political context. I’m always aware of the histories my body carries: of dispossession, of longing, of refusal. As a Black person, I know that fashion isn’t just about expression—it’s also about survival. Sometimes, I dress to disappear from systems of surveillance. Other times, I dress to confront them, to declare presence in spaces that were never built for us. There’s always a negotiation between joy and grief, beauty and burden. And I think that tension is part of what makes South African style so potent, it’s style with stakes.
How do you use clothing, personally, to mitigate or challenge those internal conflicts?
I use clothing to create a sense of sovereignty over my body. Some days, that means dressing with intention to honour where I come from, choosing silhouettes or textures that remind me of family, of ritual, of place. Other times, I lean into contradiction. I might wear something hyper-stylised or gender-fluid to confront expectations. Dressing, for me, is a daily act of editing and expanding the narrative I carry. It allows me to turn discomfort into dialogue, and absence into presence. I’m not always dressing to be seen, I’m often dressing to say something, even if no one hears it but me.
Can you share some examples of how Western fashion can be exploitative and damaging to South African designers and styles?
Western fashion has a long history of extracting from African cultures without attribution or compensation. We’ve seen South African beadwork, Basotho blankets, Zulu aesthetics and township silhouettes lifted and rebranded by international brands with no context or collaboration. Meanwhile, local designers struggle to secure manufacturing support, funding, or access to global markets. There’s also a subtler violence in how fashion weeks, editorial platforms, and agencies continue to centre Eurocentric standards—forcing South African creatives to either mimic those aesthetics to be “palatable” or risk invisibility. The exploitation isn’t just about theft—it’s about systemic erasure.
How are South African designers reclaiming space and agency within fashion?
They’re rewriting the rules entirely. Designers are building independent labels that foreground local materials, ethical production, and storytelling rooted in lived experience. Many are bypassing traditional retail structures and embracing direct-to-community models—using social media not just as a sales tool, but as an archive, moodboard, and manifesto. Brands like Thebe Magugu have also proven it’s possible to exist on a global scale while remaining culturally anchored. But even beyond global success, there’s a growing movement of designers who are committed to reshaping fashion as a site of healing, reparation, and community. That, to me, is real agency.
Can you share some designers or creatives within South African fashion who you love and who deserve more of a platform?
There are so many. One label I deeply admire is
Nos Companies, their approach feels poetic, athletic, and unapologetically avant-garde. There’s something powerful in the way they use fashion as a language, especially when you look at their treatment of fabric, silhouette, and emotionality.
MmusoMaxwell brings grace and structure to everyday garments in a way that speaks to postcolonial elegance. Beyond designers, photographers like Trevor Stuurman, Kgomotso Neto and Lindokuhle Sobekwa are building new visual mythologies through image. These creatives aren’t just making fashion—they’re making history.
Fashion as a whole, not specifically in South Africa, where do you fall on the spectrum of opinions that place it between personal art form and commercial mass industry?
Personally, I fall closer to the side that sees fashion as a personal and cultural language—especially for historically marginalised communities. That said, I’m not naive about the forces of commerce that sustain or distort it. My work as a fashion journalist often lives in that tension: honouring the artistry while interrogating the systems behind it.
What do you want to see change in fashion?
I want to see a genuine shift in how African fashion is acknowledged, not as a trend or seasonal inspiration, but as a central, ongoing part of the global fashion narrative. Too often, the industry consumes from African aesthetics without investing in the people, platforms, or histories that create them. I want to see more equity, more local ownership of our stories, and a deeper respect for regional fashion journalism as a critical voice in shaping global style.
Can you share a little info about the work that you do for readers, and what your wider aims are through this work?
I’m a visual and editorial fashion journalist focused on shaping the attitude and narrative of fashion from a Southern African lens. My work explores how style, photography, and editorial platforms reflect deeper cultural shifts. Through writing, curating, and documenting, I aim to create an archive of thought and visual culture that resists erasure and celebrates the complexity of Black and Southern style. My broader aim is to centre Southern voices in the global fashion discourse — not as outsiders, but as originators and critical thinkers.
Finally – where can readers find your work & is there anything you have coming up that they should look out for?
Readers can find my work through DeModeJournaliste, where I write long-form fashion editorials, and soon through the South African Fashion Archives (SAFA), a platform I’m building to archive and celebrate Southern style. I’ve also recently been invited to Africa Fashion week London & Africa fashion week Lagos this season, which I’m currently preparing for. On social media, I regularly share new work and visual commentary via @de_mode_journaliste.
There’s honestly much more coming, and I’m excited to keep shaping fashion from the South, outward.